Hopson steps in as T&G publisher, says main goal is to oversee planned sale

Monday

Jan 6, 2014 at 12:08 PM

By Bob Kievra TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

WORCESTER — The top executive at the Telegram & Gazette said this morning the process of selling the newspaper will take six months and attract considerable interest from bidders.

James W. Hopson, a 40-year newspaper executive, introduced himself to the T&G staff this morning, the same day he was named interim publisher of the 148-year-old newspaper.

A Missouri native, Mr. Hopson, 67, succeeds Bruce Gaultney, who announced his retirement last month.

In taking control of Central Massachusetts' dominant media outlet, Mr. Hopson faces two tasks - running the day-to-day operation of the newspaper and telegram.com while assisting in its proposed sale.

John W. Henry, owner of the T&G, announced in November he would sell the newspaper. Mr. Henry, a billionaire who also owns the Boston Red Sox and The Boston Globe, indicated at the time he would like to find a local buyer, but also said he would keep the T&G if he could not find the right owner.

Mr. Hopson said today most of his time would be spent facilitating the sale and that from an operational standpoint his role was "to keep the ship steady."

He said he has not yet met Mr. Henry but is familiar with the brokerage firm retained for the sale because he has worked with them in recent years selling five other newspapers.

He said the T&G would attract considerable interest because it has good market penetration, a solid share of the advertising market and operates without much competition.

"This newspaper is a very attractive property," he said.

In announcing his appointment, Christopher M. Mayer, the Globe's publisher, said Mr. Hopson would remain in the job through the completion of the sale process.

"His experience in other regional markets will allow him to bring a broader perspective to the challenges facing us," Mr. Mayer said in a note this morning to T&G employees.

Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, a mergers-and-acquisitions business based in Santa Fe, N.M., has been retained by Mr. Henry to seek potential buyers for the T&G.

An award-winning regional news operation, the T&G has circulation of 74,000 daily and 78,000 Sunday print and Web subscribers. In addition to its print publication, the T&G publishes news online at telegram.com.

The newspaper employs about 180 workers. The sale will not include the Millbury printing plant that the T&G built and opened in 1992.

A sale would be the second within a year for the T&G. Mr. Henry last year purchased the Globe and T&G for $70 million from the New York Times Co., which exited New England to focus on its flagship publication.

Mr. Hopson is no stranger to Massachusetts, having served two stints in the state as a top publishing executive. In his career he has worked for newspapers controlled by publicly-traded companies, private equity firms and family-owned businesses.

He most recently was interim publisher of the New Jersey-based Press of Atlantic City, which was sold in July to Warren Buffett's BH Media Group. The Press of Atlantic City is a 67,000 daily and 77,000 Sunday circulation newspaper that had been family-owned for 62 years.

Prior to his work in southern New Jersey, Mr. Hopson was chief executive officer of ASP Westward LP, a publisher of community newspapers in Houston and Denver. ASP Westward was majority-owned by American Securities, a private equity firm.

Mr. Hopson, who has a journalism degree from the University of Missouri and an MBA from Harvard, was chairman of Lee Enterprises' Capital Newspapers and publisher of the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison from 2000 to 2007.

He also worked as president from 1994 to 1995 of Community Newspaper Co., a suburban Boston company controlled by Fidelity Capital that owned and operated dozens of Massachusetts weekly and daily newspapers.

A U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam, he began his career in publishing with the Des Moines Register and Tribune in Iowa.

Mr. Hopson may be best known to Central Massachusetts for a six-year stint from 1982 to 1988 as publisher of the then-Middlesex News in Framingham. During that period, the Harte-Hanks owned newspaper added two dailies and 11 weeklies and beefed up its staff and editorial coverage. In 1983, he helped coin the phrase MetroWest to describe its circulation area of 27 cities and towns. He quit the paper in 1988 to take a teaching job, he said, at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

After retiring from the Wisconsin State Journal in 2007, Mr. Hopson took to the road. He embarked on a cross-country trek, walking across the United States, visiting newspapers along the way and posting his comments to a blog at Poynter.org.

Contact Bob Kievra via email at bkievra@telegram.com.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.